In memoir, Ashley Judd said it was ‘selfish’ for people to procreate

Now that she is seriously exploring a U.S. Senate bid in Kentucky, actress Ashley Judd is getting attention for some past statements that probably won’t go over very well with voters in the Bluegrass State.

One particular stance that is getting fresh attention — after The Daily Caller published a number of these statements Tuesday — is Judd’s reason for believing that having children is selfish.

“It’s unconscionable to breed with the number of children who are starving to death in impoverished countries,” Judd told the Sunday Mail in 2006.

Does Judd really think it’s unreasonable for women to give birth to their own children?

She has expressed the sentiment in other outlets before.

TheDC obtained a copy of her 2011 memoir, “All That Is Bitter and Sweet,” where she elaborates on her thinking on page 39.

“I figured it was selfish for us to pour our resources into making our ‘own’ babies when those very resources and energy could not only help children already here, but through advocacy and service transform the world into a place where no child ever needs to be born into poverty and abuse again,” she said.

Added Judd: “My belief has not changed. It is a big part of who I am.”

“The fact is that I have chosen not to have children because I believe the children who are already here are really mine, too. I do not need to go making ‘my own’ babies when there are so many orphaned or abandoned children who need love, attention, time, and care,” Judd wrote.

The liberal actress explained that she has “felt this way since I was at least eighteen and I had an argument about it with a childhood friend.”

Judd says she has sent resources to children who fit this description for years.

“Over the years I have quietly ‘adopted’ many children in America and in different parts of the global South — a better term for the developing world — sending money for health care, food, schooling, and shelter in ways that are appropriate for the places where they live and which improve their chances for better lives,” she wrote.